(Spoilers, Beware)
This is the quintessential movie about tech. professionals 25 something. Software jobs can hopefully never get as dull as the job portrayed in this movie. Of course its the year 1999, smart, sharp software engineers have been deployed by evil INITECH (from the movie, any coincidence is unintended) to fix the Y2K bug in bank software from all around the world. The usual artifacts of corporate life exist and plague the protagonist. They include TPS Reports and the silly next door office receptionist with that extremely annoying high-pitched greeting :).
His life grows exceedingly dull, in his own words “each day is worst than the last, so today has to be the worst day of his life”. Of course, things go mystically wrong as he is hypnotised into living his dreams. The deal is, the hypnotist dies in the process of a freak heart attack and Peter, our fella, is left in that state. From the next day, life changes, he just does not bother to turn up at work (anyone been there before?).
His boss Bill Lumburgh, happens to be the worst possible Super in the world. They don’t get any worse than him… he drives upto work in a Porsche. There is very little significance to Bills character. I know a lot of people hate techies for the get-rich gold rush upto 1999. I guess his stock paid off, he got promoted and now he just makes life miserable for Peter. He never hesitates to ask Peter in on weekends !repeatedly! Peter being too Pussy to reply 🙂 must come in anyway. That brings us to Peters reawakening (hehe I guess you could call him the contemporary ‘Neo’).
Peter turns the tables. Then Bill brings in the heavy artillery, efficiency consultants to evaluate the value of the employees. This is where the movie simply begins to spin an incredibly hilarious yarn and turn events on their head. Everything is a sweet surprise.
This is the second time I’ve seen the movie, I saw it first ages ago and this time too it had a really easy desired affect. Coming back to Industry, finding motivation all depends on where you look for it. I don’t think any other story has ever made me laugh over such a simple thing as an office stapler.
Links:
Quotes
Swingline Staplers
What the hell is a TPS Report?
Initech
Soundtrack
Reviews
“It’s not that I am lazy, I just don’t care 🙂 It’s a problem of motivation”